MONSON – A Proposition 2 ½ override question will be on the April 4 ballot, asking voters to approve spending $103,000 to fund emergency medical technician-firefighter hours that have previously been grant-funded.

Selectmen, at their Tuesday meeting, unanimously endorsed putting the question on the ballot, to show their support for Fire Chief George L. Robichaud's request.

The $103,000 includes the salary for the positions - $43,000 for a full-time emergency medical technician-firefighter, and $25,000 for part-time hours, as well as approximately $17,000 in benefit costs and $17,000 for half the cost of bonding for a new ambulance.

The override would fund a total of 90 work hours, Town Administrator Gretchen E. Neggers said. The full-time position is 50 hours a week and represents a fourth EMT-firefighter on duty during the week.

It would cost the owner of the average home valued at $220,000 an extra $34 a year, she said. Robichaud said his department averages 1,000 emergency calls a year, in addition to 300 fire-related calls.

“That's busy, every day, for a town our size,” Robichaud said.

Neggers said information about the upcoming override vote will be posted on the town of Monson's website, www.monson-ma.gov, and Robichaud said he also will visit with groups to explain the proposal.

A federal grant funded the emergency medical technician hours, but it is set to expire next month. Robichaud said he has enough money to fund the hours through the remainder of the fiscal year only. Two years ago, budget cuts forced the elimination of two emergency medical technician-firefighter positions. An effort to reinstate them through an override failed.

Neggers said residents called 911 and had to wait for mutual aid ambulance service from another town 26 times during the six month gap in service that occurred after the budget cuts until the grant funding became available.

“It can be a very long wait . . . if you've ever stood in the middle of the street waiting for those red lights,” Neggers said.

Neggers said the debt on the Quarry Hill Community School project is being retired as of July 1, the start of fiscal year 2012, meaning that taxpayers will no longer be paying extra taxes for that project as of that date. That project had cost the average taxpayer $77 a year.

In other news, Selectmen Chairman Edward S. Harrison announced that he will not seek reelection, citing increased family obligations.

Harrison encouraged citizens to run for selectman, and other town positions available.
“Your vote counts most in local elections. It's an opportunity to determine who's going to govern the town for the next year or several years,” Harrison said.

Harrison, 70, has been on the board for 12 of the last 14 years. Only Edward A. Maia, School Committee chairman, has taken out nomination papers from the town clerk's office for the three-year selectman position. The deadline to pick up papers is Feb. 10; the deadline to return them is Feb. 14.

After the meeting, Harrison said he will miss being a selectman, but may continue his role on the Western Massachusetts Casino Task Force.